Development of the Graphical User Interface and Improvement and Streamlining of NYMTC's Best Practice Model Jim Lam, Andres Rabinowicz, Srini Sundaram, Caliper Kuo-Ann Chiao, Mohammad Rashid, Ali Mosheni, NYMTC Bob Donnelly, Surabhi Gupta, PB TRB Applications Conference, May 18, 2009

Development of the Graphical User Interface and Improvement and Streamlining of NYMTC's Best Practice Model Improve Usability and Applicability Move to the Latest Versions of Model Software (TransCAD) Exploit Features of New Model Software Procedures Streamline and Optimize Model Code New Graphic User Interfaces Adapt to Multiple Hardware Environments Multi-threading and Distributed Processing Public, Web-Access to Model Outputs

Background BPM is implemented in C programs, GISDK script, other software, and TransCAD modeling software BPM requires 2 CPUs and 3-4 gigabytes of RAM BPM is deployed on a dated version of TransCAD (4.5, updated to 4.8) BPM has long running times Previous experiments and new developments suggest massive speedups are possible.

Improving Usability and Applicability Lessen hardware requirements for some users Create a full-featured User Interface Scenario and File Management Automated Reporting and Output Manager Create a superfast version for production

FlowChart GUI Easy to View Model Stream Easy to Use Easy to Create new Scenarios

Flowchart

Example Snapshots of Interface

Model Run Time Comparisons Processor: Intel Xeon 4-Core Processor, 3.0GHZ, RAM Memory: 3 GB Hard Drive: ~300GB 10,000 RPM in Raid 0 configuration OS: Windows XP Professional, 32-bit Model:Highway only 3-Loop Feedback TransCAD 4.5:Current BPM Model run times (on a slower machine) TransCAD 4.8:Model Run after new GUI interface and model update to TransCAD version 4.8 TransCAD 5.0:Model run after new flowchart GUI interface, update to TransCAD version 5.0, and software and model performance enhancements, before Distributed Processing Distributed Assignments saves ~ extra hours

Model Run Time Comparisons

Software and Model Enhancements Faster Procedures Multithreading Code Optimization Minimization of Inputs and Outputs Potential for even more performance enhancements with 64-bit TransCAD –More available memory –Better multithreading with I7 processor and Vista –Some processes (i.e. matrix processing) much, much faster

Automated Reports and Graphics

Interactive Reports Link reports of flows, congestion, speeds, etc. TAZ/Demographic reports Network reports (Origin-to-destination paths and travel time diagrams)

Dynamic Web Application Provide Key Input Data and Model Output to the Public Datasets and starter maps created by interactive reports Interactive Queries & Reports Custom Map graphics

Example Snapshots of Web Browser

Ongoing Work Integration of newest BPM version into interface Inclusion of transit portions of model –Development of newer more accurate NYCTA transit networks –Development of better methods of access/egress/transfer links –Development of better transit assignment (e.g. equilibrium pathfinder) methods –Handling of route/platform/parking capacities